Poy Sang Long belongs to the wider Southeast Asian Buddhist custom of temporary ordination, in which almost every boy is expected to spend a period as a novice monk at some point in his youth, but the Shan festival stages the passage with unusual theatrical richness. In the days before ordination the boys, called sang long, are dressed and adorned as princes, in imitation of the Buddha's own life as a pampered heir before his renunciation of the palace, with silk robes, elaborate headdresses, face powder and jewellery borrowed for the occasion from across the community. Carried on the shoulders of male relatives or on horseback in procession through the streets to music and dancing, the boys are treated for these days as objects of honour and are traditionally not permitted to let their feet touch the ground.
The festival is concentrated in Shan communities of Myanmar's eastern hills and has been carried by migration into northern Thailand, particularly Mae Hong Son province, where it draws both religious participation and, increasingly, tourist attention as a distinctive regional spectacle. The princely display closes abruptly at the ordination itself, when the boys' hair is shaved, the fine clothes are set aside for plain robes, and each takes the vows and precepts of a Buddhist novice, sangha membership beginning where the pageant ends.